O Jerusalem

O Jerusalem!

Romans 9:14-10:4

Online Sermon: http://www.mckeesfamily.com/?page_id=3567

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. 38 Look, your house is left to you desolate”

Matthew 23:37-38

Paul’s Anguish

The anguish that Christ felt before His crucifixion because His own people would not repent and be saved, was one that Apostle Paul felt deeply! Paul said he had “great sorrow and unceasing anguish in his heart” to the point that he “wished himself to be cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of his people” (9:1-2)! Having “advanced in Judaism beyond many of his own age” (Galatians 1:14) Paul understood his countrymen’s fierce passion to retain their traditions of temple, Torah, and lineage as “God’s chosen people” (9:4). It was not that long ago that Paul shared their zeal to the extent that he “breathed out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples,” had them imprisoned (Acts 9:1-2) and even approved of the stoning of Stephen (Acts 8:1)! It was only when he heard the Good Shepherd say, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me” (Acts 9:3) that his eyes, mind, and heart were opened to realize that Christ whom the prophets spoke, and angels pondered (1 Peter 1:10-12) was none other than the Messiah (Romans 9:5)! God’s very own Son had emptied Himself (Philippians 2:6-11) and offered His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45)! This was Good News but how would Paul tell his own people that he loved so dearly that entrance into the kingdom of God was not based following the Law but by faith in a risen Savior (9:30-32)? How would Paul explain to them that God had not failed in His promises made to Abraham, but through Christ fulfilled them? As a highly skilled ambassador of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20) Paul makes his appeal that Israel would accept the Gentile people and that they themselves might join him and have their own “Damascus experience,” repent and believe in the way, truth, and life (John 14:6)!

God’s Chosen People

Knowing that his people would passionately object to his teaching concerning Israel’s alienation from God and the grafting in of the Gentiles, Paul switches to a “question-and answer” format in which he anticipates and answers Israel, his dialogue partner’s objections. The first objection Paul anticipated they would make was: is not “Israel’s tragic alienation (9:1-3)” mean that God’s promise to His chosen people somehow failed (9:6)? To this Paul says the promise to be God’s chosen people was “given sovereignly, not biologically!” Earlier in chapter four of this letter Paul reminded Israel that before Abraham was circumcised, he was credited as righteous based on his faith in God. Salvation was not based on being born into the nation of Israel but by “having faith, so that it may be by grace” that people become God’s children (4:16). If one truly believes that God’s promise was to the direct descendants of Isaac, Paul argues, then why did were not both Jacob and Esau equal recipients of His promise? God’s choice of Jacob over Esau was not based on genealogy, for both had the same parents, or on one being better than the other, for the choice was made before they were born; but so that “God’s purpose in election might stand” (9:11). Justification through faith in the atoning sacrifice in Christ did not “contradict the Old Testament position that marks out the Jews as God’s chosen people” because the family of God was never based on nationality but faith! “What then shall we say, Paul rhetorically asks, that the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness by faith; but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal (9:30-31)? Yes, that is exactly what Paul was saying, faith and not works has always been how one becomes part of God’s chosen people!

Is God Just?

In response to his statement that before either were born God is said to have “loved Jacob, but Esau I hated,” Israel would likely have objected for Paul reasoning suggests “that God is unjust” (9:14) in His election of one over the other! This part of Paul’s argument is one of the most difficult ones given in the entire Bible! To answer whether God is just Paul quotes Exodus 33:19. In response to the children of Israel worshipping the golden calf God had every right to destroy the Israelite nation and raise up a new one from Moses (32:9) and yet the stated reason for saving them was “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion” (33:19). This bestowal of God’s mercy was not dependent on “human willing” (9:16) for He does not have any obligation to save anyone! Since all have sinned and fallen short of His glory, God owes us nothing and should one only consider His justice then all would perish! Not only is God free to show mercy to whomever He wants, He is also free to “harden whomever He wants” as well! For example, God repeatedly hardened Pharoah’s heart so that His demonstration of might, power and mercy might be cleanly seen by both the Jewish and Egyptian people. God is not “capricious,” irrational in His selection of some to blessings and others to damnation but merely makes His selection based on His sovereign right to rule and not based on the will of His loved but sinful creation! God “hating” Esau in Malachi is similar expression used to describe Jacob loving Leah less than Rachel. And when it comes to Pharoah how could anyone suggest God was unjust to when Pharoah worshipped Egyptians gods? God in His sovereignty has every right Paul says to give one person a better and more significant role in His kingdom and He also has the right to assign a damnation role to anyone He chooses for He alone is sovereign!